Page 76 of The Wildest One

“What the hell crawled up your ass today?” He moved around me in a circle. “You were a beast during practice, and now you’re shooting at me like you’re at a fucking gun range.”

I slipped my hand out of my glove and pulled off my helmet. I hadn’t even felt hot, but the sweat poured straight down the front of me, and as it started to drip into my eyes and sting, I wiped them. “It was a long night.”

And a long couple of days, but the last thing I wanted was to talk about it. Besides, Landon didn’t even know that I’d run into Jolie, which meant I’d have to start from the beginning, and that was a tale I wasn’t getting into now.

“You all right, my man?”

While we skated toward the opening in the rink, I handed my stick to one of the team’s helpers and replied, “Yeah, I’m good.”

“You sure?”

I shook some of the sweat out of my hair. “Positive.”

Even though he eyed me down, I stayed silent. My siblings had been giving me a fucking earful since we’d met up at Charredon Saturday night. Even Colson had voiced his thoughts after Eden filled him in on our family group chat. The last thing I needed was another opinion swirling around in my head.

Landon took off his helmet and stepped off the ice after me, groaning as soon as his skates hit the concrete. “Fuck day one of practice.” His hand went to my shoulder, giving me a surprising amount of weight as we walked to the locker room. “I’m not going to be able to move in a couple of hours.”

“You need a cold plunge, followed by at least twenty minutes in the hyperbaric chamber.” Adrenaline was what was keeping me moving, but as soon as that wore off, I was going to be in pain. Fortunately, I had both of those at my house, so I didn’t have to use the team’s. “Do it, trust me. You won’t make it to tomorrow’s practice if you don’t.”

“Ugh,” he moaned.

I laughed at him. “You sound like a little bitch.”

He tossed his glove and flipped me off. “I hope you’re sore as fuck tomorrow. Asshole.”

I continued to chuckle. He took a seat at his locker, which was right next to mine, and I stayed standing to strip off my practice jersey. I then unhooked my shoulder pads and the rest of my gear, handing each piece to our equipment manager, leaving me in just my compression shorts.

“What are you up to tonight?” Landon leaned forward to take off his skates. “Do you want to go out and grab some drinks?”

“Can’t.”

“You have plans?” He slipped one skate off and went to work on the other. “I’ll wager a grand right now that you’re even too sore to get hard. So, how about you cancel those plans and come out with me?”

I laughed. “Dude, nothing stops me from getting hard. And I don’t care how sore I am, I’m never too sore for sex.” One of thehelpers threw me a towel, and I rubbed it over my soaked head. “I’m going to hit the shower?—”

“Listen up,” our coach said as he walked to the center of the locker room, glancing around where the team was either sitting or standing—all of us in different stages of getting undressed. “Before you leave or go take a shower, I need you sitting down for a few minutes so we can go over something.”

The room turned completely silent.

I sat next to Landon, wondering if Coach was going to discuss how we’d played today. As a whole, we didn’t look great. Most of the guys, including myself, hadn’t been on skates in weeks. Their diets weren’t in check. They hadn’t lifted consistently. Their stamina was shit.

They liked to fuck off during the offseason, and I didn’t blame them. We only had a short window of downtime.

But one thing we knew how to do was pull it together. By the first preseason game within the next couple of weeks, we’d be back to the team Coach expected.

“We have a few changes that are about to take place, but instead of hearing those from me, I’m going to let you hear it from the man himself. Please cover up, gentlemen.”

Since I was in shorts and had nothing to cover, I glanced at Landon and whispered, “What the fuck is happening?”

“No idea,” he replied.

A man I’d never seen before walked into the center of the locker room, shaking Coach’s hand. He waited for Coach to join us before he said, “Most of you, I assume, don’t know who I am, so let me introduce myself. My name’s Mark Jameson, and as of a few days ago, I’m the new owner of your team.”

Whispers began to fill the silence, including mine as I glanced back at Landon and whispered, “What the hell? We were sold? And no one told us?”

“I’m sure many of you have questions. I promise you’re going to get those answers and you’re going to get them from me,” Mark said, clasping his hands, his gold wedding band shining under the lights. “But I want to start off by saying, the previous owner did an excellent job at running your organization, and I don’t plan on making that many changes. At least not ones you’ll feel at your level.” His eyes scanned the horseshoe of lockers, making sure to connect with each of us. “What I do plan on doing is making this team more profitable. Ramping up marketing efforts. Making sure the Whales are getting the press you superstars deserve.”

There was a brief round of applause from our team.